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75th Anniversary of the Invasion of Poland, September 1st 1944

Remembering the War...the noble face of a member of the Carpathian Brigade

Well might the Prime Minster of Poland Mr. Donald Tusk warn Europe today in Gdansk against 'naive optimism' when considering the inflammable situation in Ukraine. Poland has much to remember and betrayals aplenty.

As a small gesture of solidarity I thought I might post a small extract from my book on Poland concerning my own visit to historic Gdansk many years ago - a foreign traveller's view.

The scream of seagulls
next to my ear woke me from a deep sleep like an attempted murder. I sat up
violently and struck my head on the low attic ceiling. As Gdańsk is situated on the Amber Road, I thought it appropriate to
stay at the Hotel Jantar (AmberHotel)
on the Długi Targ (Long Market) among
the magnificently restored Renaissance and Baroque burgher houses. Exuberant
strapwork, scrolls, swags of fruit, antelopes and bears in flight, drums and
cannon and scenes of classical combat fight for space with portraits of
Shakespeare. The gulls swept raucously away from their perch towards the Baltic
as I poked my head out of the attic window and took in an unsurpassed view of
the ‘treasure of Gdańsk’
the Złota Kamienica (Golden House)
and the houses occupied by Polish kings when visiting the city. The high gables
were reminiscent of Antwerp
or Amsterdam,
the convincing restored originality of these buildings reversing the extensive
wartime damage caused by the ‘liberation’ of the city by the Red Army in 1944.
The dilapidated interior of my room kept me at the window for some time.

The so-called ‘TriuneCity’
extends along the Bay
of Gdańsk and comprises
the great Hanseatic city of Gdańsk
(Danzig), the seaside resort town of Sopot with its faded fin-de-siécle charm and the industrial port of Gdynia. Gdańsk was a city of many privileges in a
unique location with a complex history. Despite being dominated by Dutch and German
traders attracted by the port facilities, the city remained strongly
independent in outlook. It was held by
the Teutonic Knights until 1454 when a rebellion by the citizens returned it to
Poland.The city grew into one of the most
famous centres of culture and commerce in Europe
during the seventeenth century producing fine work by goldsmiths and
silversmiths, clocks and grandiose furniture (the famously huge carved
wardrobes found in every magnate’s house). The city’s high intellectual status
produced the luminaries Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit and Arthur Schopenhauer.

The Polish political
pendulum swung energetically in Gdańsk.
After the Second Partition in 1793 it fell to Prussia then briefly became a free
city under Napoleon and again fell under the Prussian and German heel. The
dithering at the Treaty of Versailles created the ‘Danzig Corridor’ under the
control the League of Nations. A compromise
was reached when Danzig was created a ‘Free
City’ having specific Polish rights which were deeply resented by German
nationalists. Hitler lanced one of his many suppurating boils when the first
shots of the Second World War were fired on 1st September 1944 by the German battle cruiser Schleswig-Holstein into the Polish garrison at Westerplatte on a peninsula in the
estuary of the Dead Vistula. The battle was the longest and one of the hardest
fought of the German invasion.

At night the misty rain
seemed to trap the city in a time warp. Ferries and boats of all types lay at
anchor, some boarded up in various states of disrepair. Dark shadows and
ominous presences reared out of the deserted dark, the air strong with the
smell of the sea. Ulica Mariacka is
one of the most beautiful streets in the country with the features of ‘old Gdańsk’ preserved.
Platforms on raised flights of steps (przedproże)
cover basement shops glittering with amber and silver jewellery. Lead
drainpipes descend from roofs to stone channels which terminate in the carved
heads of dragons and gorgons out of whose mouths pour torrents of water when it
rains. The appearance of this street in a downpour is breathtaking, the
fountains forming two great streams which flow into the Motława canal.

The nearby Gothic Kościół Mariacki (St Mary’s Church) is the third largest in the
world and accurately reflects the wealth of the Gdańsk merchants. Under the stellar vaults it
contains the most tortured and intense crucifixion I have ever seen. The sculptor
is believed to have nailed his son-in-law to a cross to serve as a model.
Occasional couples hunched over café tables poured their vodka dreams in Goldwasser, a vodka with glittering
flakes of real gold suspended in the spirit. Floodlit steam rose in clouds into
the powder-black sky over the Żuraw
Gdański, abrooding wooden crane,
the largest of medieval Europe.

From

A Country in the Moon: Travels in Search of the Heart of Poland by Michael Moran (London 2008)

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Australian author and classical musician.
He seriously studied the piano and harpsichord in London for many years.
His piano teacher was Eileen Ralf, a former professor at the Royal Academy of Music and the inspiring teacher of the great Australian pianist Geoffrey Tozer.
His harpsichord teacher was Maria Boxall, editor of the keyboard works of the English Baroque composer and organist John Blow as well as a renowned Harpsichord Method.
He yearns for the South Pacific islands but through a number of unlikely events and coincidences beached up on the cold shores of the Baltic.